As the public safety market continues to require increased functionality of two-way radio, association of public safety communications officials (APCO) through project 25 (P25) encourages participation of equipment suppliers and organizations to find solutions that meet the needs of the public safety market. In general the APCO standard specifies two approaches for providing packet data internet protocol (IP) bearer service on conventional channels. The first approach employs simple common air interface Encapsulation protocol (SCEP), and the second approach employs sub-network dependent convergence protocol (SNDCP).
In the existing conventional systems, the subscriber units employing the SCEP protocol can communicate only with the infrastructure system operating at the SCEP protocol. Similarly, the subscriber units employing SNDCP protocol can communicate only with the infrastructure system operating at the SNDCP protocol. However, migrating the subscriber unit employing the SCEP protocol to the system having SNDCP protocol currently requires replacement of the system's infrastructure as well as all of its subscriber units. This is costly and undesirable.
In the existing technology, the challenge is that the SCEP and SNDCP based subscribers cannot operate on the same channel. Other systems may face similar challenges when attempted to handle multiple protocols on the same channel.
Accordingly, there exists a need for providing interoperability between two different protocols.